A Rattle of Bones: A Rebecca Connolly Thriller

By Douglas Skelton

Old sins cast a long shadow in this unrelenting thriller by the author of Thunder Bay.

When banners proclaiming the innocence of James Stewart spring up at the gravesite of his famous namesake—a clan leader who was falsely accused of murder and hanged almost three hundred years ago in a miscarriage of justice that still resonates—investigative reporter Rebecca Connolly smells a story.
 
The publicity stunt was clearly meant to draw attention, but what’s behind it and why now? The young Stewart has been in prison for ten years for the brutal murder of his lover, lawyer and politician Murdo Maxwell, in his home in Appin, near the site of the Stewart monument. Rebecca soon discovers that, prior to his murder, Maxwell believed he was being followed, and his phones were tapped. What would justify a government phone tap against a public figure? And why is a Glasgow crime boss so interested? As Rebecca keeps digging, she finds herself in the sights of Inverness crime matriarch Mo Burke, who wants payback for the damage caused to her family in a previous case.
 
Set against the stunning backdrop of the Scottish Highlands, A Rattle of Bones is a tale of injustice and mystery, and the enduring echo of the past in the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcade
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781956763256

Douglas Skelton

Douglas Skelton was born in Glasgow. He has been a bank clerk, tax officer, taxi driver (for two days), wine waiter (for two hours), journalist and investigator. He has written several true crime and Scottish criminal history books but now concentrates on fiction. Thunder Bay (longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize), The Blood Is Still, A Rattle of Bones and Where Demons Hide are the first four novels in the bestselling Rebecca Connolly thriller series.

Book preview

1

Near Ballachulish, the Scottish Highlands, 1755

The red-coated soldier was a bloodstain against the dull sky and drab scrub on the hill.

It had a name, this desolate lump above the waters, a heathenish Scotch concoction of sounds, but he was damned if he could pronounce it. To him it was little more than a pox-ridden mound of dirt that drew the elements like a hedge whore did corny-faced beard-splitters.

The waters of the lake shivered as a chill breeze weaved its way up the hill to find his solitary figure standing post. Private Harry Greenway huddled deeper into his coat, watching the small ferry being rowed across the narrows. He wished he was in his billet, a cup of hot grog in one hand and a mutton pie, warm from the oven, in the other. This was a pointless duty, a punishment for not taking proper care of the Brown Bess he now crooked loosely in one arm. His sergeant would be displeased to see him cradle the gun so carelessly, except there was no one here to bear witness, except the blasted elements and the one he guarded, who was beyond caring, Greenway wagered. Why the musket required to be pristine was beyond him. They were not in a field of battle, for these heathens were a beaten people. Yet here he stood, on this God-rotting windswept hill overlooking two lakes—Private Greenway refused to think of them with the Scotch term loch, even if he could manage the necessary guttural rasp, which to his ear sounded like someone trying to hawk up a gob of phlegm.

The sunrise had barely lightened the grey skies, and despite the thickness of his coat he feared he was in very real danger of freezing off his tallywags. That would not do, as he had hopes of deploying them soon with young Eilidh, the daughter of an innkeeper near their barracks who was known to wag her tail in return for a penny or two. She was a pert little doxy and he fully expected to dance the goat’s jig before the week was out.

He thrust the vision of her firm roundness from his mind and stamped on the hard ground to bring some sensation back to his feet, frozen in his square black boots, and also to somehow stem the burgeoning bulge under his breeches. The islands anchored in the water were but black lumps, the one they called the Isle of the Dead seemingly darker than the others. It also had a name in their guttural tongue but he remembered only the proper English version for where the heathens buried their clan chiefs. Seeing it rise from the waters, hump-backed and sinister, reminded him of that which stood behind. During the bleak hours of night it had been a simple task to avoid gazing upon it. He had paced to and fro in order to ward off the infernal, eternal cold that seemed the norm here in Itchland, as his comrades referred to Scotchland. He had also ensured his face was turned away lest the sight be suddenly illuminated by a stray beam of moonlight. Though there was little chance of that, for a shroud of clouds buried any heavenly glow. Now that the day had dawned, dull and lifeless as it was, he endeavoured to keep facing the waters below and the hills beyond. He had no need to cast eyes upon the object of his charge, for he—it—was not going anywhere.

It had been a man once, but it was a man no longer. The flesh was gone, picked clean by the hooded crows and the ravages of the Scotch weather. Now it was but a frame of weathered bone on which had once clung muscle and sinew, hanging on a gibbet these three years. It had slipped from its bonds at least once, he had been informed with some relish by a corporal who claimed to have been present, but it had been strung together and rehung. A warning, the corporal had said in his strong West Country accent, to them Scotch who might still fancy a bit of rebellion.

Greenway knew not what the man had done to deserve such a fate—apart from being a treasonous Jacobite, which Greenway supposed was enough—but he cared little. Standing sentinel over a dead man’s bones was merely a duty, a reminder to take better care of his weapon in future. And yet, he was unnerved. His old mum back in Spitalfields had filled his head with tales of ghosts and revenge from beyond the grave, and in the black Highland night he had imagined he heard those bones clattering as they climbed from the gibbet to repay whatever wrong it believed had been done.

His thick coat notwithstanding, the breeze seemed to cut through him as if he was not there, then swirl around the wooden gibbet like an old friend come to pay its respects. The chain creaked against the post like a cry for attention and, despite himself, the young soldier turned, if only to ensure that his night terrors had not become real.

He saw the old woman for the first time.

She was standing at the foot of the gibbet, gazing up as if in supplication. He had not heard her ascend the hill, and thus startled he swung his Brown Bess to a more ready position.

‘Step back there,’ he commanded, putting as much authority into his voice as he could muster, despite the chill rippling his words. Nonetheless, they were weak and fearful, and they wilted in the waft of the breeze.

The old hag neither acknowledged his words nor in turn paid heed. She continued to stand at the foot of the skeleton, staring at it as if it were Christ on the Cross and not some filthy rebel who defied his king. The young private considered this. Did not their saviour defy authority in the Holy Land? Was he not himself a rebel? Such thoughts were for scholars, though, and not a conscript raised in the stews of London, so he thrust them from his mind. He took a few paces closer to the woman, endeavouring to avoid gazing upon the bones swaying in the breeze. His weapon was braced across his chest, ready to level should he feel the need, the very act stiffening his resolve and injecting steel into his voice.

‘D’you hear me, woman? Step back there.’

Her head turned then and he saw how old she was. Her face, framed by the tattered woollen shawl, was criss-crossed by lines that cut deep into flesh made leather by the attentions of too many winters. As her eyes fell on the musket he held across his chest like a shield, she gave him a small smile that was little more than the gaping of a small black maw, yet when she spoke her voice was strong but as cracked as her face.

‘Are you feart, brave soldier?’

‘No, mother,’ he said gently as he lowered the weapon, his own mother’s constant admonishments to show all women respect having nestled deeply in his soul. Peggy Greenway had not enjoyed much respect in her life, having been turned out at fourteen by her mother to service the culls of Southwark. ‘You just cannot stand too close,’ he warned. ‘It is not safe.’

She glanced back at the gibbet and her smile became sad. ‘Seumas would never harm me. Not in life and never in death. We are bound by blood, him and I.’

Greenway had been in this wretched land long enough to know that Seumas was Scotch for James. The man who had once walked in those bones was named James Stewart, a traitorous murderer. He cared little about the man that was, but that much he knew.

‘You are kin to this man?’

A gnarled hand, the joints bulging and distorted, tenderly caressed one bleached foot of the hanged man. ‘Aye, I am kin, as many are here in Appin. Kin by blood and by marriage. But even if we were not we would still have loved him, for he was a good man. Unlike those who led him to this end—and those who left him here to rot.’

Greenway was ill-equipped to debate the justice of the matter.

‘Even so, I cannot have you stand so close. The gibbet is not secure and I have orders that no one must approach the . . .’ He paused, his mind reaching for the correct word. ‘Remains.’

The woman’s laugh was as sharp as the back of his mother’s hand. ‘Would that your people were so concerned for my kinsman’s well-being when your kind treated him so cruelly.’

Greenway could not help himself from saying, ‘Justice has been done.’

Her head whirled to face him with a speed he would never have thought possible from one so aged. ‘Justice, you say? Justice?’ She spat something thick and rheumy at the ground between them. ‘I give that for your English justice.’

She made the word English seem like something she would not feed even to pigs.

‘Mother, I must caution you.’

She waved her claw-like hand at him. ‘Ach, away, my lad. I am too far gone for your words to have meaning. What punishment can they deliver to an old woman who speaks her mind? An old woman who saw her sons and grandsons dead in the Rising? And a daughter pining for her child, left to freeze on the road from England? A boy of sixteen summers, dead from a fever caught on a fool’s errand for a drunkard and a wastrel who cared nought for the country from which he would flee like a scalded pup.’

Greenway had not borne arms for his king in the rebellion of 1745, but he knew of whom the old woman spoke. Prince Charles Edward Stuart. The Young Pretender, who had fomented revolt among the clans and had led his army south to seize the throne. They had reached Derby before they turned for home. It was only through sheer force of numbers, the cunning of His Royal Highness Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, and the inbred cowardice of Charles Stuart that the insurrection died on moorland near Inverness. Greenway kept his tongue still, for he sensed silence was the most prudent path to take. His eyes, however, darted about the open hilltop to ensure no one in authority had arrived to overhear her—or to witness him not taking her to task for her treason.

Her gaze had returned to the skeleton and her hand once more stroked the foot with what was obvious affection. ‘There was no justice in what occurred here,’ she muttered, half to herself. ‘Not man’s nor God’s. This was murder.’

Duty encouraged Greenway to remain still no longer.

‘Mother, I must again caution you to—’

The cold, invisible hand of the wind once more gripped the bones and made them shiver. The backward step Greenway took was involuntary, the raising of his musket a reflex. The old woman saw the flash of fear on his face and smiled once more.

‘That scares you, my lad,’ she said. ‘The sound. And well it should. For though the flesh is gone and only these bare bones remain, the spirit lives yet. You are young. You know nothing of these matters. But mark me, English soldier, you will witness injustice and you will witness cruelty and perfidy from your betters. And when you do, you must stop and you must listen, for this sound—this rattle of bones—will echo through the years.’

2

Inverness, present day

The man’s smile was both annoying and ultimately disturbing. It was barely there, a little half-hearted smirk, but it was reflected in his eyes. Heavy-lidded; some might say sleepy.

Rebecca Connolly was tired, however. She hadn’t been sleeping well, which in itself was nothing new but it was Saturday, it had been a busy week, what with one thing and another, and by rights at this time of the morning she should have been lounging at home in her pyjamas, looking forward to recharging her batteries by eating junk food and binge-watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She should not have been in the news agency’s small office in the Old Town face-to-face with a man making a complaint while at the same time apparently listening to a joke that only he could hear.

He had appeared at her back as she had unlocked the office door. It crossed her mind that he had been outside, watching for her to arrive. She had heard his footsteps behind her as she climbed the stairway, and he had appeared as she turned in the open doorway at the top.

‘You Rebecca Connolly?’ he asked, his tone conversational, but not waiting for a reply before he held up a copy of a tabloid from two days before. ‘You write this?’

She leaned forward to peer at the page in the dim light of the landing, a waft of strong aftershave presenting itself to her like a calling card. The story the man was tapping with the forefinger of his other hand was a report on a hearing in the Inverness court concerning a riot in the Inchferry area of the city.

‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘But no, I didn’t write that story.’

‘It came from your company, right?’

‘Yes, it did,’ she replied, wondering how he knew.

The hand holding the newspaper dropped, and he fixed those almost languid eyes on her. ‘I’m not happy.’

Rebecca wasn’t surprised. Complaints about court stories were a weekly occurrence, as common when she had been with the Highland Chronicle as they were now, with the news agency. She was used to this.

‘In what way, Mr . . .’

‘Martin Bailey,’ he said. ‘It’s my boy you’ve named here.’

Rebecca hadn’t written the story—she had actually been present during the incident when youths ran amok during a demonstration that went very wrong—but she recognised the name as one of the accused.

‘Okay,’ she said.

His eyes flicked to the office behind her, as if he expected to be invited in, but she was happier here in the corridor where the door to the tailor’s opposite lay open, with Katy Perry blasting from the radio. As much as these complaints were common, there was something about this thin-faced man that slightly unnerved her. The secret amusement in his eyes and the way he spoke in a soft monotone made her feel uncomfortable.

‘I’m not happy,’ he said again. ‘I don’t like my name being dragged through the papers.’

‘Well, it’s your son.’

‘He’s Martin Bailey too,’ he said. ‘And you’ve printed my address. I don’t think that’s right.’

‘Does your son live with you, Mr Bailey?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we and the newspaper have every right to print the address. It’s a matter of public record.’

He stared at her for a few moments, that smile still there. She got the impression that he’d known she was going to say that. ‘My lawyer says different.’

This argument was also common. Rebecca had lost count of the number of times she had heard people say what their lawyer had told them, when in fact it was likely their lawyer had told them exactly what Rebecca had said. She didn’t call Bailey a liar, though. It was always best to be business-like in these situations.

‘I can’t help what he said, Mr Bailey. The fact is, in a court report we can print the accused’s name and address. It is a matter of record.’

‘People in my community think it’s me.’

‘I doubt that, Mr Bailey. How old is your son?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘And that is stated in the story. You’re not twenty-three, are you?’

‘No.’

‘There you are. People won’t think it’s you.’

He half nodded and again she had the impression she wasn’t saying anything he didn’t already know. He ran a hand through his long hair, which was swept back almost into a mullet.

It was a warm early summer’s day and he had his shirt sleeves rolled up. Through the dark hairs of his sinewy forearm Rebecca caught a glimpse of a tattoo that looked suspiciously like the number 88. Rebecca knew this was used by neo-Nazis to signify Heil Hitler, the letter H being the eighth in the alphabet, and given what he was at that moment complaining about she thought the likelihood of an innocent reason for the tattoo extremely unlikely.

Bailey’s son had not been arrested for a few months after the riot at Inchferry, which kicked off when the mob turned ugly following a speech by Finbar Dalgliesh, the leader of Spirit of the Gael, now more commonly shortened to SG. They preferred the Gaelic Spioraid nan Gael, but Rebecca thought it a cultural insult. They showed little spirit of the Gael and plenty of right-wing bluster, while insisting that tomorrow belonged to them. Rebecca had ended up trampled underfoot after someone had knocked her to the ground. It had not been a pleasant experience.

Seeing that tattoo made her wonder if this man was an SG member, and that thought sent something fluttering in her stomach. He might even be part of New Dawn, the more extreme branch of the party which both Dalgliesh and the movement at large denied even existed. Hell, this guy might even have been there that night and be the bastard who sent her flying. These people were nutjobs.

Her gaze darted over his shoulder to the tailor’s open door, while in her mind she ran through some of the moves her self-defence instructor had been teaching her. Eyes, nose, throat and groin. Hit them hard and hit them fast.

He caught her look and his smile twitched. She cursed herself for letting him know she was intimidated, even if only slightly.

‘It’s all lies,’ he said. ‘What they said in court. You never hear the truth there.’

Rebecca knew very well that courts deal with what can be proved, but even lies can have provenance. And the truth can often be in the eyes—and ears—of the beholder. She was not about to throw him that bone, though, or debate the point with him.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Bailey, but I have an appointment, so . . .’

‘You were there that night,’ he said.

So, he had been in Inchferry after all. Once again, she had the impression that he was playing games with her.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Aye, I saw you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You were with the Chronicle then.’

‘I was, but—’

‘Finbar said you were an enemy.’

Finbar. First-name terms. That in itself didn’t mean he was bosom buddies with the SG leader, for Dalgliesh was the type to share a pint and fag and tell anyone who might support him to call him Finbar, but it did confirm Bailey was SG. And she was an enemy now: it wasn’t just the press in general, but her personally. Part of her was pleased, but not enough to quell her nerves, so she fought to remain outwardly calm.

‘You’re just like the rest. All the mainstream media. The liberal elite. Wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the arse.’ His lip curled into a sneer as his eyes crawled over her from head to foot. ‘But it’s all changed now. You had best remember that.’

Here we go, she thought. He had all the right-wing buzzwords. Mainstream media. Liberal elite. Rebecca felt he was repeating phrases he had heard at an SG meeting, all half-truths, downright lies and confirmation bias. Dealing with complaints about court stories was always stressful, but when they come from a member of SG there was an added level of concern. Something about his words, the way he delivered them, the way he laid heavy emphasis on the word ‘you’, the way he allowed those half-shut, mocking eyes to bore into her finally got the better of her patience. Do something they don’t expect, her father had told her once. Instead of pulling back, move in closer. Some people are all talk.

She took a half-step closer to him, fixing her stance in the way her self-defence teacher had taught her, and said, ‘Mr Bailey, that sounds like a threat to me.’

He didn’t move. His smile only broadened. ‘No threat, darling. This country is changing and folk like you better change with it, is all I’m saying. If you know what’s good for you.’ He stepped away, turned to the stairs, then twisted to face her again. Still smiling, his mind telling himself that little joke, he looked her up and down, as if he had sensed she had tensed up, ready for fight or flight. ‘Believe me, Rebecca Connolly, this doesn’t end here.’

She tried to think of something smart to say but she couldn’t. She let him go without a word, listened to his footsteps on the stairs, then heard the door at street level opening and closing. Only then did she take a deep breath and let it out slowly, annoyed by the slight hitch in the exhalation. Breathe, she told herself. In, out.

Her phone bleeped. She opened the text and looked at the image, a banner across a monument, the words ‘JAMES STEWART IS INNOCENT’ clear and proud.

Then the phone rang.

‘You get the photo?’ Tom Muir’s voice was crackly, distant. She didn’t know if he was in an area with bad reception or if it was because his mobile was so old it should have had a rotary dial. She pushed Martin Bailey from her mind.

‘Yes, looking at it now.’

‘I don’t know how long it will stay there. Some bugger is sure to take it down. We’ve got them at Keil Chapel, too, where James of the Glens was buried, and at Lettermore, where Colin Campbell was murdered.’

All sites relating to the original case, almost 270 years earlier, when James Stewart was convicted of murdering a government official. She knew the tale well, for her father had told her about it many years before.

But the banners did not relate to any historical figure. This James Stewart was very much in the present.

‘Okay, Chaz is waiting for me outside,’ she said. ‘We’ll get there probably early afternoon. I’m going to see Mrs Stewart first.’

‘Well, I’ve paved the way with Afua for you as much as I can,’ said the voice on the line, ‘but I hope to God you’ve taken your brave pills, love.’

‘First thing in the morning, every day,’ she said, her mind flitting back to Martin Bailey and his final statement. Something told her it was more than a threat.

It was a promise.

3

Rebecca grabbed a fresh notebook and some pens, locked up and followed the traces of Bailey’s aftershave to street level, where the heat of the day was near searing compared to the cool of the dingy stairway. The lock of the entrance door had been failing to engage properly, so she pulled hard until she heard it click. She had meant to purchase some 3-in-1 oil, but it continually slipped her mind. She made a mental note to buy some next time she was in the supermarket.

Chaz Wymark was leaning against a patch of wall between the doorway and a coffee house, one leg folded at the knee and the foot placed against the brickwork, his face raised to the sun. He opened one eye and squinted in her direction.

‘A fella could get used to this weather,’ he said.

‘It’s Scotland,’ she said, ‘it won’t last.’

He dropped the raised leg and stooped to heft his camera bag, which had been sitting at his feet like a patient dog. ‘Jeezo, rain on my parade, why don’t you?’ He slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder. ‘What kept you?’

‘Sorry, I had to deal with something.’

She welcomed the sun’s rays: it had been a long winter and early summer was proving to be a stunner. A few tourists were out already, even though it was only just after nine. A party of sightseers was being guided down the street towards Church Street, perhaps heading for the Old High Kirk. Rebecca wondered how they’d feel if they were greeted with the vision of a man dressed in the red coat of a government soldier from 1746, his throat cut and his corpse draped over a flat gravestone, as had happened the year before. She hadn’t seen it herself but she had spoken to a police officer who had. It had not been a pretty sight and it would have been more than enough to have the visitors dropping their guidebooks. She let the group pass and one of their number, an elderly woman, smiled at her. Rebecca nodded and smiled back, but it slid away when she saw Martin Bailey watching her from across the road.

She felt a frown pucker, but she turned away so Bailey wouldn’t see.

‘What’s up?’ Chaz asked, seeing her expression.

‘The guy over there.’

Chaz craned round her to look. ‘What guy?’

‘Don’t make it so obvious you’re looking, for Christ’s sake,’ she whispered.

‘Sorry,’ said Chaz, ‘didn’t know we were in cloak-and-dagger mode.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Didn’t get a chance before you told me my spycraft was somehow wanting.’

Despite her concern, she smiled. ‘He’s across the other side of the road. He’s moaning about his son’s court report being in the paper. That’s what kept me back.’

‘Okay,’ said Chaz, this time being more circumspect as he glanced towards the far pavement.

‘He’s also a member of SG. I think he is, anyway. He just threatened me, in an offhand sort of way.’

Not so offhand, she thought as she recalled his final look.

‘Did he?’ Chaz’s voice hardened and he dropped any pretence as he peered round her to give the man what was now a glare. Rebecca didn’t chastise him this time. God bless him, but they both knew he was unlikely to go all medieval. ‘Oh yeah, I saw him go in just after you.’

Without turning, she asked, ‘What’s he doing now?’

‘Just standing there looking at us.’ Chaz kept his face straight. ‘Not sure my best Clint Eastwood glower is worrying him at all. What kind of threat?’

‘Ach, just the usual sort of thing. A threat that’s not really a threat. You lot will learn, it’s our time now, this doesn’t end here, blah blah blah. It’s more the way he said it than what he said. Oh yeah—and I’m the enemy.’

Chaz kept staring at Martin Bailey. He may not have been Clint Eastwood, but he was gutsy. ‘Whose enemy? His?’

‘The SG. Finbar Dalgliesh.’

‘Anyone with half a brain is their enemy. You think he’s dangerous?’

Her rational mind told her that he was a bully, and bullies only function if they think they can bully. Chances were, that would be the last she heard of it.

‘Leave it,’ she said. ‘Come on, forget him. He’s nothing.’

They walked up the street towards the railway station. Chaz’s limp, following an incident when the vehicle he was driving left the road, was less pronounced now and he had discarded the cane he had sported for a time. He had never actually needed it anyway. She looked over her shoulder once and saw Bailey was shadowing them on the opposite side. When they reached the end of the road and he was still there, Rebecca decided it was time to nip this in the bud.

‘Wait here,’ she said to Chaz and immediately crossed over to face the man. Amusement still danced in his eyes as he looked at her, that smug little smile tickling his lips.

‘Do we have a problem, Mr Bailey?’ She kept her voice low, so passers-by couldn’t hear.

He didn’t say anything at first, just looked at her with that maddening smirk. ‘Just walking, that’s all.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she said.

‘A bloke can walk in the street, can he no’?’

She drew in a harsh breath. She really had no answer for him. He leaned in a little closer and said quietly, ‘But I’ll be in touch.’

‘I don’t